Help! Being a caregiver has warped my fiance's sense of his own mortality.

jorie13

about 2 years ago

I'm concerned about the anonymous note above. Please contact someone for help. I've felt useless and overwhelmed myself and learned that only God can really give me the certainty that I am loved unconditionally and worthwhile. He does not want us to go to Him for His sake but ours. I once desperatly needed that. If you want to talk to someone, contact me at joriebooty@yahoo.com

This is a slippery slope, and stopping the free fall can be hard. I'm stuck, yes, that's the word, caring for my 87 year old father with mixed dementias, still reasonably functional, but his presence has destroyed my privacy, and his 'quirks' are driving my stress thru the roof. Worse still, I've been unemployed for going on 15 months, with unemployment on its last extension. At 50+, I'm viewed as "too old, too expensive", so where I once made a nice salary, I'm likely looking at substantially less if and when I'm hired. The house I worked for is in jeopardy. I feel trapped because my father and I are both living off of his pension, and we can't move him to an appropriate assisted living facility until I have enough income to cover bills. As I watch him age, watch others age around me, and see elderly in nursing homes, I wonder why bother 'keeping on'. The only thing keeping me going are my cats - I need them, they need me. If they weren't here, it would be so easy to chuck it all. There isn't a week that goes by when I don't think once or twice of how I'd end my life when the time comes, particularly if I'm diagnosed with something like ALZ or terminal illness, since I don't have any kids, and would want to burden the few relatives that I have with my care. Maybe if I was working, I'd find something to be optimistic about. But for now, the caregiving, financial strain and loss of self due to unemployment is getting harder to bear.